History Of The Hejaz Before The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia
In pre-Islamic times, apart from a small number of urban trading settlements (such as
Mecca and
Medina), most of what was to become
Saudi Arabia was populated by nomadic tribal societies in the inhospitable desert. The
Islamic prophet,
Muhammad, was born in Mecca in about 571
A.D. In the early
7th century, Muhammad united the various tribes of the peninsula and created a single Islamic religious polity.
Following his death in 632, his followers rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond
Arabia, conquering huge swathes of territory (from the
Iberian Peninsula in west to modern day
Pakistan in east) in a matter of decades. In so doing, Arabia soon became a politically peripheral region of the
Muslim world as the focus shifted to the more developed conquered lands.[36] From the
10th century to the early
20th century Mecca and Medina were under the control of a local
Arab ruler known as the
Sharif of Mecca, but at most times the
Sharif owed allegiance to the ruler of one of the major
Islamic empires based in
Baghdad,
Cairo or
Istanbul. Most of the remainder of what became Saudi Arabia reverted to traditional tribal rule
.
In the 16th century, the
Ottomans added the
Red Sea and
Persian Gulf coast (the Hejaz,
Asir and Al-Ahsa) to the
Empire and claimed suzerainty over the interior. One reason was to thwart
Portuguese attempts to attack the Red Sea (hence the Hejaz) and the
Indian Ocean. Ottoman degree of control over these lands varied over the next four centuries with the fluctuating strength or weakness of the Empire's central authority. The emergence of what was to become the
Saudi royal family, known as the Al
Saud, began in Nejd in central Arabia in 1744, when
Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the dynasty, joined forces with the religious leader
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of the
Wahhabi movement, a strict puritanical form of
Sunni Islam. This alliance formed in the
18th century provided the ideological impetus to
Saudi expansion and remains the basis of
Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today. The first "Saudi state" established in 1744 in the area around
Riyadh, rapidly expanded and briefly controlled most of the present-day territory of Saudi Arabia, but was destroyed by 1818 by the Ottoman viceroy of
Egypt,
Mohammed Ali Pasha. A much smaller second "Saudi state", located mainly in Nejd, was established in 1824. Throughout the rest of the
19th century, the Al Saud contested control of the interior of what was to become Saudi Arabia with another
Arabian ruling family, the Al Rashid. By 1891, the Al Rashid were victorious and the Al Saud were driven into exile in
Kuwait.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the
Ottoman Empire continued to control or have a suzerainty over most of the peninsula.
Subject to this suzerainty, Arabia was ruled by a patchwork of tribal rulers, with the Sharif of Mecca having pre-eminence and ruling the Hejaz. In 1902,
Abdul Rahman's son,
Abdul Aziz—later to be known as
Ibn Saud—recaptured control of Riyadh bringing the Al Saud back to Nejd. Ibn Saud gained the support of the Ikhwan, a tribal army inspired by Wahhabism and led by
Faisal Al-Dawish, and which had grown quickly after its foundation in 1912. With the aid of the Ikhwan, Ibn Saud captured Al-Ahsa from the Ottomans in 1913.
In
1916, with the encouragement and support of
Britain (which was fighting the Ottomans in
World War I), the Sharif of Mecca,
Hussein bin Ali, led a pan-Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire to create a united
Arab state. Although the
Arab Revolt of 1916 to
1918 failed in its objective, the
Allied victory in World War I resulted in the end of Ottoman suzerainty and control in Arabia.
Ibn Saud avoided involvement in the Arab Revolt, and instead continued his struggle with the Al Rashid. Following the latter's final defeat, he took the title
Sultan of Nejd in
1921. With the help of the Ikhwan, the Hejaz was conquered in 1924–25 and on
10 January 1926, Ibn Saud declared himself
King of the Hejaz. A year later, he added the title of
King of Nejd. For the next five years, he administered the two parts of his dual kingdom as separate units.